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Helpdesk applications can help you deliver high-quality customer service in a streamlined workflow. However, it is one of the tools in your customer service toolbox, and like any tool, its effectiveness depends on how you use it and whether it fits in the context. Tapping into the full capabilities of any application requires a thorough understanding, configuration, defining workflow, and aligning the service agents.
A team with a fabulous helpdesk application but clueless about its usage will deliver poor results. Educating your team in its usage is the first step towards taking your help desk live. Thorough planning and setup of your service help your team achieve excellent customer service capabilities. The focus here should be on delivering a superior customer experience.
Modern helpdesk applications arrive configured with many features for ease of deployment and testing. A free trial period is also a common feature provided by premium helpdesk solution providers. Testing and configuring the application during the trial period goes a long way in a smooth deployment. So, let’s look at some of the factors to consider before deploying a helpdesk online.
Team Size
Deciding the number of service agents required to deliver high-quality customer service is like walking on thin ice. Too few agents lead to longer wait times and delayed responses, whereas too many agents lead to poor utilization.
There are several ways you can approach this problem. A logical way of deciding the number of agents required is using metrics like average time for a ticket resolution and the volume of ticket inflow to arrive at how long it takes for a ticket resolution with a set number of agents working.
Many companies divide their team into various functional specializations like billing, refund, queries, statements, complaints, and many more. Such divisions would require further considerations in team sizing. Sizing your team is a fine balancing act like walking on a rope!
Configuration
Configuring the helpdesk application to get it ready for daily operations and high-volume ticket flow is an important step before going live. Failure to do so will cost you time and disruptions that will not go down well with your customers. Fortunately, modern helpdesk solutions come configured for most features, and you have to tweak only a few of them to get going.
A helpdesk solution that is easy to configure and implement is a lot better than complex software with a huge number of unnecessary features that require a ton of effort to get it going. The most important things to configure are creating user roles, setting up email IDs, configuring social media accounts, automatic responses, pre-configured responses to most common queries, report templates, and automation.
While pre configured software is great, you might want to consider tweaking some of the configurations to suit your requirements. Doing it at the onset of deployment avoids disruptions and deliberations while running the operation so that when the helpdesk goes live, you are only focused on the customer.
Knowledge Base
A readily available knowledge base is perhaps the most useful feature in helpdesk software. A knowledge base consists of historical data and information that you can leverage to resolve tickets faster. The knowledge base could also incorporate machine learning capabilities that automate many routine kinds of stuff and save time.
Configuring and building the knowledge base with content helps your agents during helpdesk operations. A poorly built or configured knowledge base will not add any value to the service. Details like pre-configured response templates, articles, FAQs, AI suggestions, automated responses to most common queries, and so on, speed up agent work and deliver faster customer service.
Prioritization
Prioritization of tickets is an important feature in some cases where certain types of requests could attract attention and demand faster resolution. Most helpdesk applications allow you to route tickets to pre-defined agent workflows based on the nature of the request for faster resolution.
It is also possible to configure further prioritization in the system based on the nature of the service request and prioritize them at the top of the stack. Escalation mechanisms and notification should be built into the helpdesk applications in case of unforeseen delays in responding to tickets. When it comes to prioritization, always remember that where everything is a priority, nothing is a priority!
Report Automation
Most modern helpdesk applications have detailed reporting and analytical capabilities to track the customer service vitals in real-time. You can easily pull all this information into ad-hoc reports when required to monitor the status and performance of your customer service. Necessary key metrics like average ticket resolution time, CSAT, first response time, and so on are built into the application.
You can further enhance the reporting by customizing the report content to display the metrics that suit your requirements. Most help desk applications allow you to configure automated report extraction at a fixed schedule periodically to track progress and monitor the overall performance of the customer service team. Effective monitoring, mitigation, and management are a vital part of delivering high-quality customer service.
Testing
The last but not the least important step before activating your helpdesk online is testing everything that you have set up. This calls for creating dummy tickets, testing ticket resolution, checking the omnichannel capabilities, using and testing automated response templates, and so on.
Testing all functionalities before going live is vital to delivering a great customer experience during actual operations. Testing identifies potential issues, captures rectification actions, and improves the overall setup to iron out any kinks in the system.
Conclusion
A little planning and setup before the actual deployment of your helpdesk online go a long way in delivering a stellar customer experience and improving your brand reputation. You should focus on delivering the very best to your customers and customer goodwill and loyalty will follow automatically, because of great customer service. Helpdesk applications help you achieve the dream by streamlining the operations, eliminating distractions, and helping agents focus on the customer.
At Wolken, we have been helping industry leaders achieve excellence in customer service through our IT capabilities. Our team has worked with several leading brands to improve their customer experience and service capabilities and take it to the next level. Get in touch with our team if you want to level up your customer service capabilities.
